Elegant Dental Laboratory Blog
Articles on digital dentistry, clinical tips, case planning, and dental lab workflow.
Alternate Benefits and Downgrades: Why Insurance Pays for a Different Crown Than You Placed
What alternate benefit (LEAT) clauses are, how payers apply them to posterior ceramic crowns, composites, implants and partials, how they...
Crown Survival by Material: What 5- and 10-Year Data Show for Zirconia, E.max, PFM and Gold
Pooled 5- and 10-year survival and complication data for single crowns by material, on teeth and implants, what survival and...
Independent Practice vs. DSO in 2026: What the Data Say
ADA Health Policy Institute data on DSO affiliation, practice ownership, income, hours and clinical autonomy, and what each practice model...
Year-End Dental Benefits: How to Phase Treatment Around the Annual Maximum
How annual maximums, deductibles, frequency limits and benefit years work, which date payers count for crowns, bridges and dentures, how...
The American Dental Lab, Then and Now: From Back Rooms to Digital Workflows
Part 5 of our Then and Now series: how the US dental lab business changed, from 1,800 commercial labs in...
The Dental Hygienist Shortage Is Not Temporary: What the Data Say in 2026
ADA HPI, BLS and CODA data on the hygienist shortage: how hard hiring is now, how it compares with 2019...
Dentures in America, Then and Now: From Hippopotamus Ivory to Digital Dentures
Part 4 of our Then and Now series: George Washington's dentures, porcelain teeth, vulcanite, acrylic, the McGill consensus on implant...
Then and Now: How Crowns Went From Hammered Gold to Zirconia
Part 3 of our Then and Now series: how crowns were made from the 1873 gold crown patent to PFM,...
